This is the stance I've decided to take. I get to be selfish about this, I get to decide what happiness is to me, and I don't have to justify it to anybody. They're not me and they don't have to live in my body. I'm just gonna transition without any input from anybody else because nothing any naysayer has ever said has been helpful.

Edit: and I don't need to explain or declare my transition, either. "Because I'm a woman," should be plenty explanation enough and I won't hear any word about it.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Totally agree.

One day, hopefully soon, I'll take up my pitchfork and debate, argue, and fight for those among us without a voice or those not yet old enough. But I can't do that without the foundation of healthy mental choices that I'm still working on.

So until that day, yeah, they won't be getting anything other than aggressive eye contact.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Honestly, I can't say that I have the mental wherewithal to make it happen, either. Historically, I'll stutter, stammer, freeze, and repeat the same vague, useless, and open-ended answers in a few different ways before letting the other party think they've either won or that we've come to a compromise... and then I'll think of just what I would have wanted to say an hour or more later...

Someday, I'll be able to articulate these things in real-time. Someday, I hope that I will have the wisdom and courage necessary to competently dispute anyone who opposes my own personal freedoms. It's hard, though. We're social creatures and I've been cursed with a sensitivity to rejection, so... I've got some stuff to work out first, yeah.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago

Give yourself time in all things. Just because someone else appears to be adept or a natural, nothing of use can come from comparison.

Forgive yourself for your personal failure, and forgive others whose standards you weren't able to meet while you work together support each other wherever possible.

A stranger's rejection is only to themselves, and their failure to have a healthy open mind and heart.

Bravery is not a practiced fearlessness, but a persistence in spite of fear.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago

it's not even being selfish. none of these debate-me-bros are ever acting in good faith